Ah, September. Here we are. The August Blue Supermoon this week ushered us out of unofficial summer and into fall. For many of us, it won’t start to feel like fall for another several weeks; for others, it remains permanently kind of balmy. I will personally be clutching onto the summer until my knuckles are white, though perhaps you’re eagerly awaiting hoodies and rewatches of Hocus Pocus. Either way, I wish you an easy and simple transition into a new month, and here are a few suggestions that are just as uncomplicated and straightforward.

This past weekend I went to the beach for the first time this summer. It was an extra-hot day on the sand with a fair number of greenheads, so I wanted to go into the ocean pretty early on. August along Atlantic Ocean shores has the kid of cold that will take your breath away, but I knew I wanted to get full-body relief and do one of my favorite things ever: float staring up at the sky. On the way out I debated every choice I’d ever made in life, and once fully in I wasn’t so much acclimated as much as my body was just totally numb from the water temperature. My friend and I started talking about cold plunging, which people have been hyping as a miracle for all kinds of ailments. I admire those folks, but I will say this: my life is hard in many, many other ways. I don’t want to voluntarily do hard stuff like that. I want to do easy stuff.